328 J^rocccdings of Indiana Academy of Science. 



mer and till quite late in the fall. Quite solitary in its habits when feeding, 

 rarely ever more than one being seen in one place. In a boat trip from 

 Terre Haute up the river as far as Durkee's Ferry not more than four or 

 five would be seen ; and in a similar distance down the river no greater 

 number would be encountered. They doubtless nest somewhere in Vigo 

 County, but I was never able to learn just where. A specimen obtained l)y 

 Mr. Thomas Frazee near Sullivan in the spring of 1889. 



In Carroll County, during my boyhood days, the "Big Blue Cranes', as we 

 then called them, v>eve quite common. The country lying southwest of our 

 house was a dense unbroken forest for a mile or more. Scarcely had it been 

 invaded by the pioneer settlers and little timber had been cut in it except 

 about the edges. Interspei-sed through this wood Avere numerous small 

 woodland ponds, some of which became dry in late summer or early fall, 

 others remained with more or less water throughout the year. In and 

 about these ponds was a heavy growth of cottonwoods {Populus deltoides) , 

 some of them magnificent trees 100 to iriO feet high and three to five feet 

 in diameter. In the tops of these great trees, in one of the largest ponds, 

 was a considerable heron rookery ; perhaps there were usually 30 to 50 

 pairs nesting there. The most frequented feeding ground of these herons 

 was 'along Wild Cat Creek, about a mile and a half north. During the 

 spring and summer scarc^ely a day passed that we did not see many of these 

 great birds flying overhead northward in the morning, evidently on their 

 way to their feeding grounds, visually flying in twos or threes, sometimes in 

 greater numbers, but perhaps most often singly ; then in the evening, some- 

 times not until after sunset, they would return. Sometimes they flew quite 

 low ; I remember distinctly one morning, a neighbor boy fired at one with 

 his squirrel rifle and brought it down. It proved to be a female with a 

 fully developed egg in the ovi(hict. 



In the early 70"s much of this land was ditched and cleared, which caused 

 the herons to abandon that rookery. 



Probably the largest heronry that ever existed in Carroll County was in 

 what was known as the Maple Swamp in the southern part of the county 

 between Sedalia and Cutler, near Lexington, about six miles south of Wild 

 Cat Creek, or eighteen miles from the Wabash River to the northwest. This 

 swamp really consisted of a widening of a small creek known as Middle 

 Fork. It covered several hundred acres and the lower portion had a heavy 

 growth of swamp ash {Fraxinus nigra) and soft maple (Acer saccliarin- 

 um) ; and in the tops of these trees a considerable colony of Great Blue 

 Herons had their nests. My first visit to this lici onry was on June 12. 1882. 

 when I counted more than one hundred iicsis. most of them being occupied. 

 As many as thirteen nests were seen in one tree, and several other trees con- 

 tained from three to ten nests each. Most of the nests contained large 

 young, some nearly able to fly. I again visited this swamp on May 21, of 

 the next year. Climbing to several nests I found young birds in some and 

 eggs in various stages of incubation in others. . I was told by farmers living 

 near by that formerly there were many more nests but the birds were so 

 harassed and molested by squirrel hunters and others who annoyed them 

 needlessly that they were being gradually driven away. In the thr4e winters 

 from 1883 to 188.5. I had occasion to drive by this swamp several times. The 

 leaves having fallen, the nests show^ed plainly in the tops of the bare trees 

 and made a striking and very interesting sight. 



